The Parliamentary Affairs Minister Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has stated that the country lacks the capacity to employ local interpreters and devices if Members of Parliament (MPs) are to be allowed to speak local dialects during Parliamentary proceedings.

He argued that the country has not reached the stage where it can purchase devices and employ hundreds of interpreters with a ‘collapsed’ economy which the new government is trying to fix.

Parliament has over the years been mocked by a section of the public for having MPs who are ‘half baked’.

According to him, though parliamentary regulations allow MPs who are not fluent in the English language to make submissions in their local dialects, the house lacks the devices for proper interpretation.

He envisaged a possible confusion on the floor of Parliament if MPs are allowed to speak their own local dialects such as ‘Twi, Nzema, Wassa, hausa, Kusaase, Fante, Dagaati, Frafra, Ga, Bono’ etc which other MPs are not conversant with.

The MP for Suame constituency said until the Constitution is reviewed, Ghanaians who have issues with MPs who are not fluent in the English language would have to deal with the consequences.

Speaking with Kwame Adinkra on Abusua FM’s Abusua Nkommo, he said MPs cannot completely ignore the use of English language in their discourses.

‘We don’t have the capacity to employ over hundred interpreters and devices that is why we have resorted to the use of English language in Parliament in our discourses. Not all protocol conventions, laws, treaties can be interpreted in our local dialects. But this calls for a debate as to whether we should stick to the Constitution or not,’ he suggested.